Science

Science Bookshelf

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

September 9, 2013

1 THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot. Crown. The story of an African-American woman whose cancerous cells were extensively cultured without her permission in 1951. (Last month’s ranking: 2.)

2 QUIET by Susan Cain. Crown. Introverts — one-third of the population — are undervalued in American society. (1)

3 THE SPORTS GENE by David Epstein. Current. A study of the science of elite athletic performance addresses questions about whether athletic skill is innate or can be learned.

David Epstein, who has written a new book called “The Sports Gene,” searches for answers about athletic ability and our genes.

4 THINKING, FAST AND SLOW by Daniel Kahneman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The winner of a Nobel in economic science discusses how we make choices in business and personal life and when we can and cannot trust our intuitions. (3)

5 THE HAPPINESS PROJECT by Gretchen Rubin. HarperCollins. In a hunt for happiness, the author consulted science, ancient wisdom and pop culture. (6)

6 THE POWER OF HABIT by Charles Duhigg. Random House. A Times reporter’s account of the science behind forming habits, and breaking them. (5)

7 THE SMARTEST KIDS IN THE WORLD by Amanda Ripley. Simon & Schuster. High-performing schools in Finland, South Korea and Poland, seen through the eyes of American high school students abroad.

Video David Epstein, who has written a new book called “The Sports Gene,” searches for answers about athletic ability and our genes.

The titles ranked here are selected by the science editors from all adult nonfiction books reported to The New York Times for the month. These titles are fundamentally based on the sciences; those for which science is more tangential or peripheral are generally excluded. Rankings reflect combined print and e-book sales for August 2013. An asterisk (*) indicates that a book’s sales are barely distinguishable from those of the book above. A dagger (†) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders.